Fiber-channel switches are rapidly being deployed in datacenter environments that require high-density, high-availability switch platforms, including storage area networks (SAN). Fiber-channel switches may be deployed one at a time or in larger multi-switch configurations and allow many-to-many communication, device name lookup, security, and redundancy.
Currently, fiber-channel switches are commercially available having up to 256 fiber ports, and connecting and disconnecting all the optical fibers during installation and maintenance of the fiber-channel switches is a time-consuming and error-prone undertaking. Furthermore, the large number of optical fibers that need to be connected to the fiber-channel switch is unwieldy and reduces accessibility to the fiber-channel switch. This makes the management of the fiber-channel switch difficult. In addition, the large number of optical fibers can reduce airflow in server cabinets, negatively impacting performance.
Fan-out optical-fiber cables (also referred to as optical-fiber break-out cables) are used to bundle multiple optical fibers together (e.g., four, six, eight, or more optical fibers) to reduce the clutter of having multiple optical fibers and to improve and ease deployment and installation of the multiple optical fibers in the datacenter or other such environment. Fan-out optical-fiber cables have multiple optical fibers bundled together in a single cable. At the end of the cable the multiple optical fibers are unbundled and “fan-out,” with each optical fiber having an end connector (e.g., an optical-fiber LC connector). Therefore, while fan-out optical-fiber cables address the issue of managing large numbers of optical fibers, fan-out optical-fiber cables do not address the difficulty of connecting and disconnecting large numbers of optical-fiber connectors to and from each port of the fiber-channel switch.
There is a need in the art for a method and apparatus to simplify the connection of multiple-fiber cables to fiber-channel switches while simultaneously reducing the issues associated with managing the large number of individual optical fibers required in datacenters.